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Gimlet.
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What's it like having Zach Braff play you on TV? Alex gets to ponder that question with the man himself on stage at NYC Podfest. They also talk about Chris Sacca, swearing on podcasts, and crying at work in a conversation moderated by StartUp co-host Lisa Chow.To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/OurAdvertisers

144 episodes available.
A new episode about every
10 days
averaging 36 mins duration
.

Jeff Ullrich was a struggling business manager with a drinking problem and a waning sense of professional direction when, in 2010, he saw an opportunity: podcasting. It was a brand new medium, and no one had really tapped its potential. Together with comedian Scott Aukerman, Jeff founded Earwolf, one of the first podcast networks, and developed ...…

When Edouardo Jordan’s Seattle restaurant JuneBaby won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant last year, it was the first time that an African American chef had won that particular honor. Edouardo won for a restaurant that reclaims black southern food and proclaims its history. But he had spent years overlooking his culinary roots as he ...…

Dave Morin’s love for the internet began when he was a geeky kid in Montana. By his early 20s, it had led him to Apple and then to Facebook, where he became employee number 29. He helped the company innovate, pursuing a deeply-held mission: letting people be themselves and share their lives on the internet. But when Facebook began to shift, dep ...…

Anna Chlumsky became famous virtually overnight at the age of 10, when she starred in the 1991 hit My Girl opposite Macaulay Culkin. And then, a few years later, she disappeared. She left acting completely and decided to become something else: an utterly normal college student, who set off on an utterly normal career. Anna tells Alex about that ...…

In the days after September 11, 2001, Kenneth Feinberg took on an unenviable task. Congress had created the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, and it was his job to figure out who should receive money and how much they should get. But much of his time was spent doing something else: listening to people’s stories. Nearly two decades later, ...…

Paul Holes was starting out in the field of criminology when, one day in 1994, he spotted a filing cabinet in the library of the crime lab where he was working. He opened a drawer, pulled out some files, and discovered the cold case that he would spend his entire career trying to solve. He did it through a trial and error process that involved ...…

In 1998, Patty McCord joined a new company called Netflix. Her title was chief talent officer. And over the next ten years as Netflix grew (and grew), she and CEO Reed Hastings built a new kind of workplace. They threw out all the usual rules -- no more expense authorization forms or vacation requests -- and focused on creating a culture of exc ...…

During the dot-com bubble, Henry Blodget was making millions of dollars as a top analyst on Wall Street. But when that bubble burst, his fortunes changed. He became the public face of a corruption investigation that ended with the SEC banning him from the securities industry — for life. Henry tells Alex about the supreme shame of that moment, a ...…

Business Wars brings you the unauthorized, real story of what drives these companies and their leaders, inventors, investors and executives to new heights — or to ruin. Now playing: Death Row Records vs. Bad Boy Records. Subscribe and listen at wondery.fm/startupBy Gimlet.

For many businesses, it’s all about looking forward. New trends, new brands, new verticals. But Sharon Price John sees a different path: one that involves looking to the past. She has made a career of reinvigorating forgotten and failing brands, including Nerf, Stride Rite, and Barbie Fashions. But her career hasn’t been all success all the tim ...…

Before 1970, the most popular radio stations in the U.S were run by white people. But that all changed when Percy Sutton helped to form Inner City Broadcasting with the mission of putting black programming in the hands of black people. Together he and his son Pierre—and later Pierre’s daughter, Keisha—built a radio empire. But it was about more ...…

Gimlet has a new show called Without Fail where Alex talks to all kinds of people — including entrepreneurs and business people — about their successes and their failures and what they’ve learned from both. We think these conversations are ones that StartUp listeners would enjoy, so we're bringing them to you here. Director and screenwriter Sam ...…

Eva Moskowitz calls Success Academy's high school the startup within the startup. And, as at any startup, there’s been a lot of chaos in its first few years. Magic five--it’s no longer working. The kids are questioning authority. Teachers are leaving. And parents want answers. But this year also marks Success Academy’s first graduating class. W ...…

Over the years, Success Academy has faced many existential threats. Eva has had to battle the most powerful man in New York City to fight for space for her schools. She has also had to defend her organization when a controversial video featuring a Success teacher was leaked to the New York Times. Today on the show, we watch Eva battle these set ...…

It’s no mystery that Success Academy has high expectations — not just for its teachers, but also for its parents and students. Having a high bar is the key to Success’ amazing results. But the charter network’s expectations can make life hard for families and kids who don’t quite make the mark. In this episode, we will hear from two families wh ...…

Success Academy has grown quickly — in just 12 years, the network has gone from one school in Harlem to 47 schools across New York City. In order to do this, Success has had to hire many inexperienced teachers, and move them up the ranks quickly. Amidst all this growth, there is a lot of pressure on the staff to continue performing at incredibl ...…

Success Academy’s state test results are truly remarkable — their students score in the top one percent in New York State, often beating out kids from the wealthiest districts. And the network's reputation is built on these results — it’s a big part of how they attract new students, win over donors, and get approval to open school after school. ...…

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the highest performing and most controversial charter school network in New York City, and the subject of this season of StartUp. To understand Success, you have to understand Eva. So on this episode, we go back to the beginning, looking at what got Eva interested in education in the firs ...…

The Story: Eva Moskowitz wants to fix a really big problem. There are over a million kids in New York City’s public schools. Most can’t read or do math at grade level. Many won’t graduate on time. And it’s largely poor, black and brown kids who are stuck in the lowest performing schools. Eva’s the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the subject ...…

Alex Blumberg sits down with the stars of the Homecoming TV show-- Julia Roberts and Stephan James, and director Sam Esmail-- to talk about how they came to the project and what it was like to film it. This is the final part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming TV show. Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can ...…

Being in charge of a big-budget TV production means having to make decisions. It's a new kind of power for Micah and Eli, and one that's sometimes uncomfortable to exercise. The words they write have real-world, three-dimensional—and sometimes winged—consequences. This is the third part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming ...…

Micah and Eli get to work, writing the scripts for the Homecoming TV show. But taking something meant only for the ear, and turning it into something for the eye... proves to be deceptively challenging. Plus, Alex visits the set of the show, to meet the small army of people actually building the visual world of Homecoming. This is the second pa ...…

Two years ago, Gimlet released its first fiction podcast: Homecoming. Now, this November, a television series based on the hit podcast and starring Julia Roberts is launching. Alex Blumberg was behind the scenes as Homecoming went from podcast to TV production. In this first episode, Homecoming creators Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg recount ...…

The Story: At the end of the last episode, co-founders Justin, Emmett, Michael, and Kyle had a big problem on their hands. Streaming Justin's life 24/7—the very idea their company was founded on—turned out to be kind of boring. Pretty soon people stopped watching. In this episode, the four friends try desperately to extend the life of their com ...…

The Story: A group of friends moves across the country to launch an unlikely website that they think could replace television. The media loves them. They just need to figure out how to get their users to feel the same way. This is part one of a two-part series that originally aired in April of 2016. The Facts: Matthew Boll and Peter Leonard mix ...…

The Story: In the evangelical world, there are very few female church planters. In 2012 only three percent of all conservative churches had women as lead pastors. In large part because one of their key theological beliefs is that women, according to the Bible, are not meant to lead churches. But there are other reasons too — maybe even bigger r ...…

This is our fifth and final episode following pastor AJ Smith, who has been trying to grow a new church in Philadelphia. It’s a process that has come with all sorts of existential problems, but also… some very practical ones. In order for Restoration Church to become self-sustaining, it needed to double in size by the end of the year. We’re now ...…

Hell, homosexuality, and the role of women in church — these are some of the most sensitive topics in Christian theology today. And the implications are huge: where an individual church stands on these issues can have a major effect on who does or does not attend, and … who gives money. A common critique of church plants is that they present as ...…

In the world of church planting, every Sunday counts… but there are a couple Sundays each year that can truly change the fate of a church. One of them: Easter. If you want to grab somebody who is open to church, but for whatever reason isn’t going, Easter is the time to do it. AJ and Leah need to double the size of Restoration by the end of thi ...…

It takes more than just a calling to start a church. You need a following. You need money. And to get that money, pastors often have to pass a kind of test. Welcome to the wild world of assessment. There’s whole industry of professional assessors who use psychological tests, behavioral interviews, role-playing scenarios and more, to try to dete ...…

Every year, there’s a movement of thousands of pastors starting new churches — they call them church plants. It’s a world remarkably parallel to the tech industry, with incubators, growth metrics and, well, angel investors. One of these pastors, Watson Jones III, has dreams of starting a bustling new church in North Philly. But first, he has to ...…

For the last six months at StartUp, we have been following a group of pastors and their families who’ve shown us what it’s really like to start a church in modern America. It’s a movement of people trying to disrupt one of the oldest, most bureaucratic institutions in history: The Christian church. Here’s a sneak peek.…

For seven months, Arlan Hamilton agreed to let StartUp reporter Amy Standen follow her around with a microphone and ask her all kinds of questions — from how much money she had raised for her venture capital firm, Backstage Capital, to where she slept when she couldn’t afford a place to live. Like many reporter-interviewee relationships, Arlan ...…

In our final episode of the series, Arlan is on a roll. She’s making new investments, raising her profile in the VC world, and bringing new people into her network. Some of her founders tell us why they really wanted investment from Backstage. And Arlan makes a surprise announcement that surprises her peers in Venture Capital. This is the final ...…

In this week’s episode, Arlan tries to maintain control as investments fall through, she butts heads with a prominent investing platform, and we meet the Thelma to her Louise. This is the fifth episode in a six-part series on Arlan Hamilton and her company, Backstage Capital. Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can sign up at: giml ...…

Arlan has only a few months left before her cash runs out out when a seemingly perfect opportunity comes along. Is it too good to be true? Also, we take a look at Arlan's past as an entrepreneur, before she became a venture capitalist. What did she learn? And can she avoid making the same mistakes? This is the fourth episode in a six-part serie ...…

Like most venture capitalists, Arlan Hamilton plans to find the next billion dollar company by pattern matching—that's when VCs look to entrepreneurs who've been successful in the past and pick founders that match those qualities. Most VCs pattern match for people like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, but Arlan pattern matches for something diffe ...…

In this week’s episode we dive into what Silicon Valley considers “hustle” and how it may need to update its definition. We also find out how Arlan first got into venture capital—after months of sleeping on the floor at San Francisco International Airport. Plus, meet one venture capitalist who really gets Arlan’s goat. This is the second episod ...…

Silicon Valley is leaving money on the table, and Arlan Hamilton will go to extremes to prove it. She's a venture capitalist like no other — black, female, gay — and she's out to prove that investors in the Valley are overlooking big returns they could tap into by investing in more outsiders. Arlan calls them "underestimated" founders, and she' ...…

What's it like having Zach Braff play you on TV? Alex gets to ponder that question with the man himself on stage at NYC Podfest. They also talk about Chris Sacca, swearing on podcasts, and crying at work in a conversation moderated by StartUp co-host Lisa Chow. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/OurA ...…

Season 7 of StartUp is almost here! On April 27th, we’re taking you into the world of venture capital with Silicon Valley’s most unlikely power broker: Arlan Hamilton. Here’s a sneak peek of our story. And are you looking for more Gimlet in your life? Then click here to view our guide to other Gimlet shows coming this spring.…

Gimlet co-founders Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber are pretty much on the same page… right? This week, we put their relationship to the test. Producer Luke Malone got Matt and Alex into separate studios and asked them the same set of questions. Then, Matt and Alex listened back to each other’s answers and find out if they’re really as in sync as ...…

In honor of the release of the TV show Alex, Inc., we’re binge dropping episodes of StartUp—the podcast that started it all—along with brand-new after shows. These are the best episodes about Gimlet, as chosen by our listeners. The fifth is: Diversity Report. If you were to walk into Gimlet HQ in 2015, there’s something you’d notice right off t ...…

In honor of the release of the TV show Alex, Inc., we’re binge dropping episodes of StartUp—the podcast that started it all—along with brand-new after shows. These are the best episodes about Gimlet, as chosen by our listeners. The fourth is: We Made a Mistake. Gimlet Media makes a mistake—one that plunges the young company into the center of a ...…

In honor of the release of the TV show Alex, Inc., we’re binge dropping episodes of StartUp—the podcast that started it all—along with brand-new after shows. These are the best episodes about Gimlet, as chosen by our listeners. The third is: How to Name Your Company. Alex and Matt need a company name. But finding one they both like proves to be ...…

In honor of the release of the TV show Alex, Inc., we’re binge dropping episodes of StartUp—the podcast that started it all—along with brand-new after shows. These are the best episodes about Gimlet, as chosen by our listeners. The second is: How to Divide an Imaginary Pie. Alex decides that he can't build the company by himself, so he links up ...…

In honor of the release of the TV show Alex, Inc., we’re binge dropping episodes of StartUp—the podcast that started it all—along with brand-new after shows. These are the best episodes about Gimlet, as chosen by our listeners. The first is: How Not to Pitch a Billionaire. In this episode, Alex explains how he got the idea to document the start ...…

All this week we’ve been following StartupBus, a hackathon on wheels, where a bunch of strangers come together to launch companies in one week, all while on a bus. If you haven’t heard Monday’s episode, start there. It’s Friday, the fifth and final day of StartupBus. By the end of today, one company will be crowned the winner of the competition ...…

Every day this week we’re following StartupBus, a hackathon on wheels, where a bunch of strangers come together to launch companies in one week, all while on a bus. If you haven’t heard Monday’s episode, start there. It’s Thursday, day four on StartupBus. The bus has finally arrived in New Orleans, where teams from all six buses will go up agai ...…

Every day this week we’re following StartupBus, a hackathon on wheels, where a bunch of strangers come together to launch companies in one week, all while on a bus. If you haven’t heard Monday’s episode, start there. It’s Wednesday, day three on StartupBus. Teams have just 24 hours left to refine their pitches before the competition begins. And ...…

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Coffee Break w/ NYWICI is a career-oriented podcast featuring casual conversations with compelling women who work within the communications industry. 341875 Host and career expert Julie Hochheiser Ilkovich chats with successful, passionate women in various roles at different stages in their careers. During these conversations, Julie asks guests to share thoughts and experiences on universal career topics, such as mastering the job interview, managing up, workplace fashion, personal finances, ...

Ever find yourself in a conversation about race and identity where you just get...stuck? Code Switch can help. We're all journalists of color, and this isn't just the work we do. It's the lives we lead. Sometimes, we'll make you laugh. Other times, you'll get uncomfortable. But we'll always be unflinchingly honest and empathetic. Come mix it up with us.

DTR is a show about everything from opening lines, to profile pics, to dating someone out of your league. Each episode dives deep into the weird, wonderful and hilarious aspects of dating in an Internet-obsessed world. Because even though technology has made it easier to find dates, love is still as unpredictable as ever. For Season 2 of DTR, host Jane Marie (This American Life, Jezebel, The Hairpin, Cosmopolitan) is back and she’s on a mission. Joined by celebrity guests (Jason Mantzoukas, ...

"Sometimes people ask us 'how do you guys write the comic?' The answer is that we sit around and look at game news and we talk about it until we start laughing at something. It sounds boring and I think it probably is. The writing process behind one of those comics is recorded and made available for your listening pleasure. We call this Downloadable Content." - Gabe (Gabe and Tycho create the web comic Penny Arcade 3 days a week. New episodes are released on Wednesdays)